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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25746670">Paradise</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenfeuer/pseuds/Schattenfeuer'>Schattenfeuer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Nightmare Harem (Visual Novel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Darkfic, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Mental Instability, Other, Reader-Insert, genderneutral reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:20:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,301</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25746670</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenfeuer/pseuds/Schattenfeuer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything breaks, you are no different.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ricardo/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Paradise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His entire world was crumbling right before his eyes and he could do nothing to stop the spider’s net of cracks from spreading. All over the walls upholding his personal sky and sun, until the pretty picture fell away and showed the ugly darkness underneath. Had you really been this unhappy here? </p><p>“Kitten…”, he called out as he took a step forwards, trying to keep his voice low and soft as to prevent you from startling, from doing something you would regret. For the first time, he had his own gun pointed against himself, he didn’t even notice you taking it from its holster. Here you two were, in the dark garden, only a few steps apart but there could have been a gaping chasm between you just as well, there was no difference. He felt the distance like icy needle pricks on his skin and it scared him, almost more than the wide eyed look of utter terror in your eyes. “Put that gun down.”</p><p>Your teeth flashed in the dim moonlight as you curled back your lips in a dangerously humorless smile, the gun shook stronger, the trembling spread from your hands down your arms, to your shoulders and was quick to overtake your entire body. What had happened between you? </p><p>“Don’t do this.”, he pleaded, his voice raspy and weak even to his own ears, his throat was so dry, as if he had been running across a vast desert without a single drop of water. You just looked at him, your gaze wild and flickering with a madness that had spawned in him first. Like a sickness he had spread it to you, had inflicted this insanity onto you and furthered its grow with each kiss, each touch and each muttered word. Carefully, slowly, he reached out, tried to ignore the burning pain in his chest when you flinched backwards, away from his touch. “Come here…”</p><p>“Hey, Ricardo.”, normally he adored the way you said his name, made it sound like a secret prayer when he wrung it out of you during nights and hushed conversations. But right now, he would have preferred you screaming, shouting and howling every profanity you knew at him, anything but this startling calmness that had overtaken you oh so suddenly. “Let’s play a game, hm?”</p><p>“A game? Wha- whoa! Kitten, no!”, the gun switched targets, the metallic click of the safety coming off echoed too loud in his ears, together with the thundering of his out of control heartbeat. Now the muzzle of his own weapon was aimed against the one person he never wanted to see in such a position again. Last time it had been him, pointing the gun at you before deciding that he could not do it, that his own miserable end was preferable over having to harm you. Cold sweat gathered on his brow as your finger started to tense around the trigger, his own muscles followed suit, about to propel him forwards, to tackle you down to the ground in a mad dash of raw despair, everything if it meant you were not able to pull the trigger. “Stop!”</p><p>His pleading fell on deaf ears and he almost collapsed on the spot when, instead of a loud pang, his gun only made a dry, hard click, the chamber empty and devoid of a bullet. Like a doll with its strings cut, he slumped together, relief rushing through his veins, melting the ice that had gathered in them for a moment. Yet, you were quick to freeze the thawing over again as you reloaded with clumsy movements, the gun once again resting against your temple.</p><p>“Why are you doing this?”, he would do anything to stop you, he would crawl on his hands and knees and beg at your feet for forgiveness, cut his own heart out of his chest if it would satisfy the blood lust you felt. Oh yes. He had seen the cuts, fresh and long, narrow on your arms, your legs, you looked at yourself as if you wanted to cleave a part of yourself out with razor thin knives and silver bullets. The dissonance within you scared him, for he could never tell which part of you was the real you, but letting you go was impossible as well. He needed you like the air in his lungs, naively he had thought that if he changed, if he became a better man, everything would become okay again. “Please don’t...please”</p><p>He flinched, hard, when you squeezed the trigger again, when his gun, this traitor, clicked once more. The worst part was that he could not find any malice in your eyes, he felt as if you couldn’t even see him anymore, standing merely a few steps away, shaking and just as helpless as you. You had cut yourself loose from everything, this world, your own, happiness and him. Somewhere between meeting him for the first time and the second rise of the red moon, you had lost yourself, had drowned in the icy depths of your own mind, the war you had fought against your inner demons had left you raw and in shambles and beaten. </p><p>Calling out your name, he inched closer, was almost within reach when the first teardrops started to fall, your body was racked by sobs and your heaving breaths, too deep, too fast, your own flesh was suffocating you and the weight of your own self crushed you beneath an avalanche of hatred aimed at the most vulnerable, tender heart beating within your chest. </p><p>“I can’t…”, you whimpered, gone was the eerie calmness, this fatalistic glee of finally meeting the end, of finally being free of it all. Your eyes cleared and when you looked at him, it was suddenly you who was begging. Your hand shook under the weight of your ticket to freedom, only you knew in which chamber the bullet was, it had never been your intention to toy with him so cruelly. “It’s too much...I am tired...I just want it over...all of it.”</p><p>Release me, your eyes begged. Grant me freedom and take away this pain that is killing me.</p><p>And he was weak, because it was you and your bleeding, broken heart, which he treasured so much, in this moment of weakness you saw your chance. One final squeeze the moment he averted his one good eye, unable to bear the amount of hurt within your gaze and you were finally free. </p><p>He screamed or at least he thought he did, shaken out of his immobile state and caught you just as your knees were buckling, you were a warm weight against his body and for a second he thought of this as nothing more than a bad dream, a nightmare from which he would no doubt wake up any second now. But he didn’t woke up and no matter how hard he squeezed you, there was no reaction anymore. </p><p>“Kitten…”, he groaned into your hair as he fell to his knees, defeated by an enemy he could have never predicted, your warm was leaving him and the world he thought he had safely secured in the palm of his hand was crashing, burning up and turning to dust and smoke. His strength left him, just as the blood left your body and in between the shambles of his broken dream, his hand searched for this treacherous gun. “‘m so sorry…”</p><p>He would make it up to you. In the next life, he would make it all up to you, would take away all the pain and the suffering that had pushed you over the edge. In the next life, he would not let you go. Yes, in your next life...</p><p>Actually...he couldn’t wait to follow you.</p>
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